Bahamut's Jewel
by Patrick Phelan
Summary: Yes, I am Bahamut-obsessed. The first in a series of vignettes about the Garnet - the jewel, not the princess - in Final Fantasy IX. Spoilers from hell.
1. Kuja - Discovery

Author's Notes: I own none of these characters, though I could dearly wish to own Kuja. They're all Square's.

It's very pretty.

Hours. I've spent hours looking at this jewel, seeing the deep red in its centre and the flashing light along its cut lines, summoning up all my magic to wash through it and see within its darkest depths. I've investigated it with my magic and with all the technology the castle offers me (ah, Terra, how I miss thee). I've called in all Tot's old scholars after the man himself left for Treno, all of the Queen's white mages, the Queen herself, and in the depths of my extremity I even turned to the two jesters. ("I do not know what you want of us!" "Know what you want of us I do not either!" _So_ enlightening.) And after all of this, all this study, all I can say is that 'it's very pretty'.

I manage to restrain myself from hurling the jewel to the ground and throwing a Flare to follow it, a show of self-control that no one will ever remark on. Instead, I keep my calm, lay the jewel gently in its stand on my desk, and smile that amused smile that has already marked me in this castle.

Eidolons! I have _studied_ and _studied_ and _studied_ that great power that even Garland fears. I have _studied_ until I made Tot, for all his absent-minded scientist ways, look like the greenest student in Alexandria's libraries. And it has given me nothing but frustration!

Everything I read links jewels and eidolons. _Everything_. "The Eidolon and I", one of the most useful texts I found, said it simply: "_A Summoner can use a jewel to contact an Eidolon, wherever that Eidolon rests. While the Summoner has that jewel, he may call that Eidolon from where it lies, and then command it. Slowly, the Eidolon and the Summoner become linked, until the Summoner may draw the Eidolon into himself and have no further need of the jewel._"

Plain and simple on the page. But there is _nothing_ in this jewel that suggests an eidolon may rest beyond it! And if _my_ power cannot find it out…

A knock at my door. I turn to face it, stilling the growl that comes automatically to my throat on being disturbed. "Come in." I command, and they do. Zorn first, Thorn second, as ever, with that peculiar sameness of gesture that marks them as One above and beyond being Two. They file in front of me, Zorn to my left and Thorn to my right.

I never understand these fools, even though they give themselves to me above and beyond anyone else. Why do they turn to each other and leap into the air before they begin speaking? What possible purpose could it have?

"We have been thinking about your jewel, Lord Kuja." announces Zorn.

"Searching through our memories and Tot's books, we have been." Thorn adds.

I laugh at that. "I highly doubt you have discovered anything I have not found, fools." Not an insult, pure and simple what they _are_. Or… perhaps, what it _is_. Two bodies, one Meltigemini.

"Maybe you are right."

"Right, maybe you are."

"But this book was hard to find."

"At the back of the library, it was, and nothing has it to do with eidolons."

"Then what has it to do with _my_ problems?" They are beginning to irritate me. I wonder, perhaps, if I would regret sending the hot embrace of Firaga to claim them both. On the off-chance that I would, I decide not too. If they have a point, though…

"It is… difficult to describe."

"A certain ritual, it is."

"Designed to steal… _extract_… magic from mages."

"Work as well, it would, on a Summoner's power."

"…Maybe."

Zorn always _was_ the clever one. He knows what I would do to them – it – if they made me a promise that did not live up to its expectations.

"So where is this book?"

"Give it to us the librarian would not."

"He said it must remain in the library."

"Even when we mentioned your name, Lord Kuja, adamant he was."

"I think that he is scared of you."

Well he might be. With that, I stand, and turn away from the jewel. I will need to read the book, of course – no sense in raising my hopes for no good purpose. I think, though, that this time I might have what I need.

I look to the garnet as I leave, daring it to contradict me.

The jewel glints in the sun, as if it knows something I do not. 


	2. Beatrix - Imperfection

(Author's Notes: More Beatrix than Bahamut in this one, really, and it's more to set the stage for the third piece. Still.)

I own none of these characters. Square owns all of these characters. That is all.

* * *

Beatrix was Alexandria's general first and foremost, and she was _almost _perfect.

Beatrix had been Brahne's general second, and that was where the problems had been.

Brahne's kingdom was beautiful. Under her command, Alexandria had been soft and glowing, covered in flowers, steeped in a kind of working decadence. Thus Beatrix's unofficial title – the Rose of May, they called her, though only Brahne and Kuja had ever managed to say it to her face. (The latter, with a smirk in his eyes that made her want to tear his throat out with her bare hands. At the time, she'd thought she could do it easily. All she'd heard about the mage since had somewhat changed her mind.)

Beauty Alexandria had in plenty.

Beauty, and perfection.

Beatrix had always been leery of 'perfection'. Her own ideals of 'perfection' were murky and ever-changing, and she didn't know if she could truly call anything 'perfect'. That thought… that mood… that almost-fear, for a General who never showed any fear or apprehension… had led her to ask the Queen one question, two years before Kuja's arrival and everything going to the Hill of Despair.

"_Your Majesty, is a rose perfect?_"

If Brahne had been struck by the _non sequitur_, she did not say so. Perhaps she remembered the discussion she had argued with Beatrix a year earlier. So she had replied:

"_Nothing is perfect, General. My roses are as perfect as I could make them._"

Beatrix had pressed.

"_Everything you have done to the roses, you have done to make them more perfect?_"

Brahne, nonplussed.

"_Of course. This sentimentality is not like you, Beatrix._"

Then the General had taken her leave, and gone without permission to the Queen's royal chamber.

And as she had expected, every rose had been completely stripped of its thorns.

* * *

"Still alive, eh?"

Beatrix's one eye turned to face the man, with no shock whatsoever. Her instincts were trained and honed to… well, _almost_ perfection, and she'd known he was there ever since she'd started mounting the stairs. If he had pulled a weapon, a Shock would have found its way into his throat before he could take a step.

All this awareness, though, did not make her sure of his name. "You are… Baku?"

"Yup." the thief-king gloated. "I'm the man who abducted yer princess!"

Beatrix showed no change in expression. The Rose of May would not be flustered. _Abducted her, and had her out of the kingdom while Brahne ran mad. Saved her, perhaps, from Brahne's axe or Kuja's less-pleasant punishments_. Not that she would ever thank such a man for such an act, though. "Let us forget about that. It happened a long time ago."

Baku smiled brilliantly, revealing a mouthful of teeth that were as yellow as Beatrix had expected them to be. "You got a big heart, unlike that knucklehead, Steiner. No wonder the women are runnin' the show here." And he laughed at that, a huge, almost overbearing laugh.

"Boss! You must have seen Beatrix!"

And Beatrix turned her cool one-eyed gaze on Zidane as he ran up the stairs. He managed to stop very suddenly, but still took a few centimetres of steps. _Almost_ perfect.

* * *

It had been a year before the conversation about the roses. Garnet was eleven, Beatrix somewhere in her late twenties. (The Rose of May had better things to do than count her birthdays.) The monsters around Alexandria had been growing in size, numbers, and ferocity, and the army of Alexandria could do what it was meant to do from the start: protect the nation.

The Pluto Knights were left behind, of course. Steiner led them in calming the civilians and fighting anything that managed to break through Beatrix's monster-hunt. The Rose of May kept her opinions to herself, but in her opinion, Steiner was the only one who could be trusted to do any good. The others… could be trusted to run around like chocobos who smell gysahl greens, and make as much sense.

Beatrix's seiken and Save the Queen had left a trail of destruction through the monsters that swarmed outside, and the soldiers around her were using their blades and ice magic to nearly as good effect. The attacks of the monsters had been lessening in fury and frequency, and Beatrix was about to give the command to retreat back to the castle and see what happened next behind foot-thick walls.

And as she turned to give the command, a trick sparrow had stormed out of nowhere and struck as if it had known what it was doing.

Save the Queen had struck out as if of its own initiative, as Beatrix's other hand had flown to the gouge where one eye had been. Her training kept her standing until she was sure that the danger had passed, and then her pain took over.

She had been carried to the infirmary by two of her best, laid with some reverence on the bed in the centre of the room, and then her soldiers had stepped to the sides of the room. They were at home on a battlefield, and never in a hospital. And when their all-but invincible General was wounded, they were _never_ comfortable.

Beatrix didn't make a sound as the white mages crowded around her, laid their hands upon her face, played Cures and Curas and Curagas over the wound, sent out Regens and Esunas, even lashing out with a desperate Life when nothing else seemed to work. In the end, they could save the flesh, but not the eye.

And so the General had lain abed for almost an hour, carefully not being bored, while the overabundance of magic that had been poured into her began to reach equilibrium with her body. She'd only come aware of the world when heavy footsteps had entered the infirmary – the Queen had always been graceful, but at her size, even grace could only do so much.

Injured though she was, Beatrix managed to bring her fist to her shoulder in a textbook salute.

"No need, Rose." Brahne waved the salute away. "I am sorry for your injury, and I congratulate you for your courage: the monsters have run, and perhaps will not attack again. Captain… what was his name?"

"Steiner." Beatrix supplied.

"Captain Steiner wished to extend his congratulations as well. You are quite the hero, General, and deservedly so. What have the mages said about…" One hand gestured, ineffectually, but Beatrix knew what Brahne was going to ask.

"They say that they cannot save it, there is no hope. It does not matter. I shall continue to serve as best I can."

"Are you sure?" Brahne's voice was kind, but laced with desperation. "Do you not think that you could stay longer, let them try everything they can? The white mages here are most powerful…"

"Let them continue training Her Highness." Beatrix, for the first time, interrupted her Queen. And she knew well why she had done it. "I can serve with one eye as well as I can with two, Your Majesty, and the white mages doubtless have many better things to do."

"If you are sure, Rose."

"I am, Your Majesty."

Brahne nodded a farewell, turned, and walked from the room. Worried for her General, of course, but somewhat – offended, as well.

Beatrix had interrupted her because she didn't want to hear any of that desperation any longer. Fully three quarters of it was worry for her General, for her life and her ability, yes. But the last quarter… was when she looked into the bandages, and realised that Beatrix's face would forever be asymmetric, forever be disfigured, forever be… _almost_ perfect.

* * *

"As you can see," Beatrix explained to Baku and Zidane, "Alexandria was completely destroyed. Steiner and I did our best to protect Alexandria… but our efforts were in vain."

"Steiner was worried about you." the young man said, and was that reproach in his voice? "Why haven't you contacted him?" Then he turned away from that: the business of warriors is their own, and Zidane was always more a charming consort than a warrior. Every ounce of charm, though, faded to concern as he spoke. "Dagger's still in shock. She's been mute ever since the attack."

"She is…?" _Poor Princess. I should have helped her._ "Then it is better for her not to return to the city for a while. It won't do her any good to see Alexandria like this."

"Well, here's the thing." The charm was back, but it had with it an essence of uncertainty and almost fear – of course fear, who would not quail to give bad news to the Rose of May? "We can't find her. I thought she'd be back here, but I can't find her anywhere."

Surprising. The young tailed thief had always seemed to _understand_ the Princess, and Beatrix imagined he could sniff her out wherever he went. Maybe he didn't understand Garnet as well as her General. "She is back in Alexandria, but nowhere to be found? Have you looked in the resting place?"

" 'Resting place?' " Zidane's expression was confused, but relieved. He _wasn't_ going to be executed by Save the Queen after all.

"Yes. If she is back in Alexandria, I am certain she will be there."

Zidane was about to leave when Beatrix's voice called him back. "There are a couple of favours I'd like to ask you. If you see Princess Garnet, please tell her not to worry about Alexandria. She must take care of herself first."

Zidane shrugged, as if he would have said that anyway. Likely, he would have. "Sure. What else?"

"I'd like you to give something to her."

Beatrix's ungloved fingers ran over the stone in her pouch. It was a beautiful, shining red, cut by a master gemsmith under not Brahne's, but Beatrix's orders. She had intended to give Gernet the jewel as a present on her sixteenth birthday… _that_, of course, had quickly become an impossibility.

When the gemsmith declared that he had finished, though, Beatrix looked the gem over again, and told him to make one more strike with his chisel.

He had. It had altered the cut, made a tiny mark in the side of the gem, changed the way it shone.

Almost perfect.

It would do.

Carefully, making certain it was always under her control, she produced the garnet from her pouch, and placed it in Zidane's hand. His fingers closed around it automatically, and he let his hand hang gently by his side, its precious cargo within.

"Maybe it will help the princess get through this time of uncertainty."

And with a textbook salute, Beatrix walked away. 


End file.
